Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6

[WraithLord]

All hail rodnj, the prince of new balance. May the nerfs be with you :)

[13lackGu4rd]

seems like a lot of players are complaining about the OPness of Ashdod and to a lesser extent Hinnom and Gath. perhaps the next CBM update(whenever that will be) could address some of the issues which make the Hinnom line nations so OP in MP?

[Sir_Dr_D]

Couldn't we nominate someone else to continue with the balance mod, such as Sombre.

[kianduatha]

seems like a lot of players are complaining about the OPness of Ashdod and to a lesser extent Hinnom and Gath. perhaps the next CBM update(whenever that will be) could address some of the issues which make the Hinnom line nations so OP in MP?

To a fairly great degree, those issues have been addressed--fairly massive price increases for their recruitable thug chassis(most notably so you can't purchase an Adon 1st turn) takes away some of their early momentum. Also the inclusion of the Hero's Blade gives an excellent counter to low numbers of elite giants.

How many MP games have even been played with Ashdod since 1.6 came out?

[Snowcat]

I have now completed reading the over 50 pages in this topic
an I really think somebody should make a new topic with the
title PROPOSITIONS FOR CBM 1.7 - the propositions should
be voted for, polled, and neatly listed up so somebody could
actually put all these ideas into practise rather than just
thinking and talking about it.

So this is my sincere and optimistic invitation for anybody
reading this to do this. Go forth, fellow Pretenders and may
your sharp minds strike true:heart:!
:bug::bug::bug::bug::bug::lightning::cheese:

[Trumanator]

lol nice first post. As for propostions, generally QM uses the feedback on his previous CBM thread (this one) when making the next CBM. However, its going to be a month or two before we get a new one, what with his current busyness.

[13lackGu4rd]

seems like a lot of players are complaining about the OPness of Ashdod and to a lesser extent Hinnom and Gath. perhaps the next CBM update(whenever that will be) could address some of the issues which make the Hinnom line nations so OP in MP?

To a fairly great degree, those issues have been addressed--fairly massive price increases for their recruitable thug chassis(most notably so you can't purchase an Adon 1st turn) takes away some of their early momentum. Also the inclusion of the Hero's Blade gives an excellent counter to low numbers of elite giants.

those counters you mentioned seem rather irrelevant Imho as they clearly don't address the issues fully.

How many MP games have even been played with Ashdod since 1.6 came out?

and this is precisely the problem, in too many MA and even single age games Ashdod is just banned, almost as much as LA Ermor/R'lyeh...

[anonymity]

I have now completed reading the over 50 pages in this topic
an I really think somebody should make a new topic with the
title PROPOSITIONS FOR CBM 1.7 - the propositions should
be voted for, polled, and neatly listed up so somebody could
actually put all these ideas into practise rather than just
thinking and talking about it.

So this is my sincere and optimistic invitation for anybody
reading this to do this. Go forth, fellow Pretenders and may
your sharp minds strike true:heart:!
:bug::bug::bug::bug::bug::lightning::cheese:

While there's something to be said for forging ahead with 1.7, I'd hesitate to ever put balance changes up for a vote. People complain about a lot of things and think certain changes might be cool, but it's up to the mod creator to keep the mod focused on its objectives. CBM was never meant to be much of a nation balance mod, and look here we are discussing nation balance changes for the majority of the last 50 pages.

and this is precisely the problem, in too many MA and even single age games Ashdod is just banned, almost as much as LA Ermor/R'lyeh...

Just because they're not being played doesn't mean they should be nerfed further. The current balance changes need to be tested before determining if they're insufficient. Besides, there's nothing overpowered about Hinnom and Gath, especially compared to their eras and to the other giant nations. Gath might even be considered weak.

[Squirrelloid]

CBM was never meant to be much of a nation balance mod, and look here we are discussing nation balance changes for the majority of the last 50 pages.

I think that, as of CBM 1.6, this is pretty patently false. Most of its changes make no sense outside of a general game balance perspective. The Ashdod nerfs already mentioned, for example, are very clearly about balancing Ashdod vs. other nations.

So regardless of what it started as in its infancy, its very clearly about nation balance now.

[Trumanator]

Well, to be truthful its basically about what QM wants it to be. Its true though that it has steadily edged in the direction of balance.

[LDiCesare]

seems like a lot of players are complaining about the OPness of Ashdod and to a lesser extent Hinnom and Gath. perhaps the next CBM update(whenever that will be) could address some of the issues which make the Hinnom line nations so OP in MP?

To a fairly great degree, those issues have been addressed--fairly massive price increases for their recruitable thug chassis(most notably so you can't purchase an Adon 1st turn) takes away some of their early momentum. Also the inclusion of the Hero's Blade gives an excellent counter to low numbers of elite giants.

How many MP games have even been played with Ashdod since 1.6 came out?
I don't think hero's blade does anything to counter Adonim. Last time I looked at a giant (admitedly a Hinnom one), I just decided that hero's blade wasn't worth it because I had noone who had a chance of surviving one blow from the giant, so he wouldn't ever hit him. Humans have a hard time against such giants. The gold increase reduces the number of adonim, but just look at a zamzummite, and you'll realise adonim are not the only issue with Ashdod. First time I met zamzummites, I thought they were capital only because they are so good. Nope.

[Sombre]

Actually most of the Hinnom/Ashdod rebalances make sense on an individual unit/spell level, not just on the nation balance plane.

Dawn Guard (or Dawg Guard as I like to call them) for example, were eclipsing everything else, while having too strong a starting army messed with the utility of awake pretenders and bless expansion.

[vfb]

seems like a lot of players are complaining about the OPness of Ashdod and to a lesser extent Hinnom and Gath. perhaps the next CBM update(whenever that will be) could address some of the issues which make the Hinnom line nations so OP in MP?

To a fairly great degree, those issues have been addressed--fairly massive price increases for their recruitable thug chassis(most notably so you can't purchase an Adon 1st turn) takes away some of their early momentum. Also the inclusion of the Hero's Blade gives an excellent counter to low numbers of elite giants.

How many MP games have even been played with Ashdod since 1.6 came out?
I don't think hero's blade does anything to counter Adonim. Last time I looked at a giant (admitedly a Hinnom one), I just decided that hero's blade wasn't worth it because I had noone who had a chance of surviving one blow from the giant, so he wouldn't ever hit him. Humans have a hard time against such giants. The gold increase reduces the number of adonim, but just look at a zamzummite, and you'll realise adonim are not the only issue with Ashdod. First time I met zamzummites, I thought they were capital only because they are so good. Nope.

With high defense and mirror image, you might not get hit, and if he's using a brand you should ensure you've got 100% immunity to that element. Mistform will protect against a single hit, and luck helps.

The glamour horsemen are good candidates. If your nation has W2 mages, you should buff with Quickness,

[rdonj]

I don't think hero's blade does anything to counter Adonim. Last time I looked at a giant (admitedly a Hinnom one), I just decided that hero's blade wasn't worth it because I had noone who had a chance of surviving one blow from the giant, so he wouldn't ever hit him. Humans have a hard time against such giants. The gold increase reduces the number of adonim, but just look at a zamzummite, and you'll realise adonim are not the only issue with Ashdod. First time I met zamzummites, I thought they were capital only because they are so good. Nope.

It isn't just humans who benefit from a hero's blade while fighting adonim. There are at least a few things smaller than an adon that I can think of that should be able to survive a round or two with an adon, though admittedly they are not always super accessible. The glamour nations stick out as a group that should find it quite reasonable to use hero blades to chop down giants. Provided they can actually get the swords to do it.

Edit: Ninja'd by VFB, whose post was just better.

[Sombre]

You also don't necessarily need to survive a hit - you can try and make sure you hit first via flight, quickness, high AP thug etc. With high strength and a hero blade, you shouldn't need to hit more than once.

[Squirrelloid]

...while having too strong a starting army messed with the utility of awake pretenders and bless expansion.

Ok, that's bull, and I'm pretty sure you know it. No giant nation is ever going to take an awake pretender unless its units are unplayably bad.

More generally, not every nation is or should be tempted by sacreds and/or awake pretenders, and its ridiculous to think its even possible to achieve such a state.

Further, that QM chose to make certain options more expensive rather than make the alternatives cheaper is indicative of what he thought of the nation vs. nation balance created by those choices.

[Sombre]

I don't follow your logic. If one choice in a recruitable lineup is flat out superior to the others, qm has on numerous occasions hiked the price on the standout, or reduced its overall upside. See jomonese longbows. Unless you think he was trying to balance the awesome power of Jomon?

Obviously changes to Hinnom, Vanheim and Mictlan considered nation balance. But they were also about making the nation more varied within itself, in terms of strategic choices. If you have a sick, sick starting army compared with every other nation, it messes with nation balance, it's aesthetically weird and it also limits competitive strat choices.

Re: Giant nations and awake pretenders - There's also nothing inherent in giant nations that would make an awake pretender ridiculous. The reason it might be a bad choice is incidental to the characteristics of giants (recruitable thug commanders, high hp units, high str units, large size). It comes down to other attributes like having great expansion units, having units which thrive on a huge bless or not needing a rainbow to sitesearch early. Taking an awake pretender with Fomoria or Gath seems like a legit choice to me.

[Squirrelloid]

I don't follow your logic. If one choice in a recruitable lineup is flat out superior to the others, qm has on numerous occasions hiked the price on the standout, or reduced its overall upside. See jomonese longbows. Unless you think he was trying to balance the awesome power of Jomon?

Well, I don't understand that particular example at all. Samurai archers weren't very good before they were inexplicably nerfed by QM, and are totally unplayable now. I can't imagine anyone actually hiring them even in vanilla.

So if that example is supposed to support your point, it failed pretty badly.

[Trumanator]

Before the nerf they were considered the only good thing about Jomon. I don't really agree, but that's why they were nerfed. This was also quite a ways back when Jomon was even weaker.

[LDiCesare]

You also don't necessarily need to survive a hit - you can try and make sure you hit first via flight, quickness, high AP thug etc. With high strength and a hero blade, you shouldn't need to hit more than once.
And regarding other comments: Yes, sure. If you can avoid being hit, don't you think the adon can, too? One in three will cast luck to begin with. Others will wear 2 bracers of protection for +4 defense, etc. If you can build a hero's blade, what kind of + defense gear do you think they can build (should mention their forge bonus mages here)? That weapon isn't a worthwhile counter in my opinion, because when the adonim are an issue (from turn 2), most nations have absolutely nothing to put in front. Last time I tested a CBM1.6 Ashdod vs. Mictlan, Ashdod just walked over Mictlan. Vanheim might be able to kit a van with a hero's blade, but I can't see any other MA nation that could do something (well, maybe Eriu actually).
I'd rather nerf adonim into a (level 0?) summon with a cost such that they can't get out before a few turns than hope that hero's blades will make a difference against them.

[Sombre]

I don't follow your logic. If one choice in a recruitable lineup is flat out superior to the others, qm has on numerous occasions hiked the price on the standout, or reduced its overall upside. See jomonese longbows. Unless you think he was trying to balance the awesome power of Jomon?

Well, I don't understand that particular example at all. Samurai archers weren't very good before they were inexplicably nerfed by QM, and are totally unplayable now. I can't imagine anyone actually hiring them even in vanilla.

So if that example is supposed to support your point, it failed pretty badly.

Er, what?

My point was qm does downgrade units with the goal of within nation unit balance. Which he did in the case of Jomonese Longbows. Whether or not you agree with that change is immaterial. It just goes to show fault in the logic that 'downgrade to unit = qm nation balancing not unit balancing'.

Again, if you want to talk about CBM /should/ be doing, that's a different issue to what CBM (and thus qm) /has/ been doing. Some changes have been made with nation balance in mind, but CBM is not moving towards more towards attempts at nation balance. At least not during the released version. The vast majority of the changes are still about spell/unit/resource choices.

[Maerlande]

Personally, I would like to see the Lord of Rebirth available for TNN and Eriu. It would provide a nice alternate chassis for the E9N? type builds with adding enough death to have a late game. And I think it's quite thematic.

[kianduatha]

Sad though I am about it, Sombre is right--as per the stated goal of CBM, changes are mostly for the purpose of giving nations multiple strategies. Jomon longbows were nerfed because at the time it was the only thing Jomon players even got, turning them into a rather boring one-trick pony. Now at least Jomon has a lot of options that are fairly equivalent in effectiveness, even if it is a weaker nation overall.

Similarly, Ashdod is in reality quite one-sided with cheap Adons. They're simply so good there's no reason to do anything else. It also helped balance Ashdod compared to other nations, but it came from in-nation balance.

Unfortunately, this is why something like Ichtycentaurs getting a hoof attack will never happen--because those are already their best troops, and buffing them further would make Oceania a one-trick pony(haha). Trident Knights, however, might get the extra attack(and even maybe one flavor of ichtysatyr to give a Reveler analogue).

[Squirrelloid]

I don't follow your logic. If one choice in a recruitable lineup is flat out superior to the others, qm has on numerous occasions hiked the price on the standout, or reduced its overall upside. See jomonese longbows. Unless you think he was trying to balance the awesome power of Jomon?

Well, I don't understand that particular example at all. Samurai archers weren't very good before they were inexplicably nerfed by QM, and are totally unplayable now. I can't imagine anyone actually hiring them even in vanilla.

So if that example is supposed to support your point, it failed pretty badly.

Er, what?

My point was qm does downgrade units with the goal of within nation unit balance. Which he did in the case of Jomonese Longbows. Whether or not you agree with that change is immaterial. It just goes to show fault in the logic that 'downgrade to unit = qm nation balancing not unit balancing'.

Its only unit balancing if it actually looks even remotely like balancing units. It doesn't, it made their worst unit even worse still, which is mostly inexplicable. Which does nothing to demonstrate any particular balancing agenda, since it has no (positive) effect on balance, nation or unit.

Further, as the change happened many iterations ago, its hardly relevant to my claim that *CBM 1.6* is more about between-nation balancing. I will happily stipulate earlier CBMs were entirely about unit balancing if you insist, regardless of the factual value of that statement (although it is plausibly true, I don't care to review them all), because its irrelevant to my claim. So the only relevant examples come from CBM 1.6.

--------

So, looking at the CBM 1.6 changes:
-obviously most of the item and spell changes are not nation changes, and therefore not relevant one way or the other. Despite this, there are some examples of nation balancing even here.
--Naiad warriors cost reduction, despite being a spell change, is specifically called out as a nation balance change.
--Burnsaber's UWGIM item changes are very clearly nation balance changes, as they were done specifically to make it easier to traverse the land-sea divide by nations that had a hard time doing so. Burnsaber is quite explicit about this in the UWGIM thread.
--The umbral change is clearly an attempt to make Agartha more competitive again.

-Specific national changes:
--MA Agartha's change log does nothing to increase play of lesser used options, and is more about adding new options and increasing the capabilities of old options to make them more competitive. (ie, the old options that were improved were already the ones people were playing with. The new options obviously don't balance units within the existing nation).
--EA Agartha's cheaper oracles do nothing towards unit balance, as you would buy an oracle per turn every turn as soon as you could before the reduction. Thus, it is clearly a between-nation balance change.
--Similarly the change to Pans, Panic Apostles, Capricorns, et al.
--Similarly the other MA Oceania changes.
--Androphag archers price was increased because of the bug, ie, because they were too effective *against other nations* for their cost. Clearly a nation balance change.
--EA Atlantis changes are all about making it more competitive. Same for changes in price/effectiveness for Marveni and Man top tier mages, and the same for Kailasa as well.
--Giant SC cost increases are certainly because they were too effective against other nations, not because of internal nation dynamics (you will always recruit your best cap-only every turn if the option is available, so its not like increasing their cost causes you to consider buying something else if you can afford them).

Now, the rest of the changes are arguable either way, but by and large improved units belong to *weaker* nations, suggesting that between-nation balance was a motivating concern. If unit balance within a nation was the only concern, you'd see a more even distribution of improved units across nations regardless of power. If you really want I can do the statistics on it, but I guarantee the effect is highly significant.

So, to conclude, to pretend CBM 1.6 is not heavily invested in nation balance would suggest you haven't actually reviewed the changelog.

[Festin]

Are there any good reasons to _not_ increase the gem cost of Tartarian Gate? Because I fail to understand why this was not done a long time ago. It would be very nice to have some diversity in the endgame (which is the most boring part of a game as it is, in my opinion).

[Squirrelloid]

Are there any good reasons to _not_ increase the gem cost of Tartarian Gate? Because I fail to understand why this was not done a long time ago. It would be very nice to have some diversity in the endgame (which is the most boring part of a game as it is, in my opinion).

I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, tarts are really good at 12d and 15n for the GoR. And I'd really like to see GoR at 5n so you can use it a little more frivolously without shooting yourself in the foot.

On the other hand, increasing their gem cost isn't going to do much to change the ideal endgame, because there are no options that compete with tarts in terms of performance. So all you do is raise the bar to be able to play the endgame, making Well of Misery even more essential to winning, etc...

Basically, tarts need a non-unique alternative that is competitively good in terms of performance. Preferably one that involves one of N,W,F to summon. This would make balancing tarts much easier, and diversify end-game strategies.

[Maerlande]

Tartarians are so cool that increasing the cost would be a coolness factor reduction.

QM is totally into coolness factor. It's really not hard to comprehend the changes in CBM if you use the coolness ration. For example, Jomon archers are uncool so they get nerfed. Androphag archers, while cool, are bugged so get nerfed.

Devala are cool so they get buffed. Armless dom spreading prophets for pearls are way cool.

Kydnides are cool so get cost reduction.

Dragon master is super coolio so gets cost reduction.

I don't know why you guys spend so much time debating QM's motivation. It's simple. It's the cool factor.

[Festin]

I am all for SC diversity, especially for the said paths. Unfortunately, there seem to be no suitable candidates for this role. Nature has some top-level summon which is never ever used. I think it is a dragon of some kind, so it is probably hopeless, since it does not have enough item slots to be a SC.

It would be interesting to see how a game would go if Tartarians were banned.

EDIT: Oh, and what actually is "Abomination"? I do not have Dominions here on the netbook with me, but I recall there is a high-level SW summon named like this.

[Trumanator]

Abominations are decent army killers, bad SCs. They are summoned as a unit, have only misc slots, and several life drain attacks plus gaze of death.

[Stavis_L]

Note that astral pearl income reduction has the side effect of reducing wished-for SC chassis units in play.

A list of SC units, aside from pretenders:

1) Tartarians, various flavors
2) Angels (wishable for all or summonable for some) - Chayot, Seraph, Grigori are definite SC, some others are high end thug/low end SC (iron, vengeance, fallen angels)
3) Giant nationals - Hinnom, Ashdod, Niefel, and to a lesser degree Fomoria, Gath, Yomi, possibly some more
4) Rudra, Mandaha, and Davana for Indian themed nations
5) Elemental royalty
6) Unique demons/devils
7) Golems
8) Wraith Lords
9) Tarrasque (nature dragon summon)
10) Iron dragon (earth construction summon)
11) Abomination (SW summon)
12) Eater of the Dead (SD summon)

Now, I've probably missed some, and obviously not all of these are of equivalent value - some of these are more borderline for "SC-ness", but it seems to me that reducing the ubiquity of Tartarians in the end-game would mean leveling the opportunity costs and/or effectiveness of some of these options relative to Tartarians.

This is a hard problem in that many of these are restricted to particular nations or require otherwise less useful paths to summon (vs. general utility of high Death), while any nation may use Tarts, and a high Death caster is always valuable. Also, if Tarts were overnerfed or eliminated entirely, it would cause a large shift in nation to nation balance- nations with easier access to the "unlimited" chassis options above would be effectively boosted (this is probably bad for e.g. Ashdod.)

I think that the main issue is that the game is designed for a smaller endgame (and probably smaller fields of players in general) than seems to be currently typical on these forums. If you have e.g. 3-4 nations left, the fact that the uniques are "used up" is less of an issue.

To that end, something that limited the number of Tartarians, or, taken the other way, removed limits on e.g. unique elementals, would be a way to see more variety. Not sure you could do the former, but the latter would probably be doable.

Wasn't someone (llamabeast??) working on an elemental thug/sc mod?

[Belac]

I have no idea if this is possible, but what if Shattered Soul increased over time (eventually reaching 100%)? So the utility of each Tart declines, until you have to retire them and summon another one. That would nerf them a bit without making them weaker when usable.

[Festin]

Making elemental royalty non-unique may be good for overall balance, but it is horribly unthematic.

Actually, it would be really nice to see more national SC summons. I would like to see Chayots, Rudras, Dai Oni, Lords of Civilization, Seraphs, Fallen Angels etc. Who mentioned the coolness factor?

And instead, in every single game so far all I saw were Tartarians, Elementals (mostly Air Queens), and various blood summons. Before the clam nerf there was a chance to see some rare Seraph in action, but no more, it seems.

[KissBlade]

The longbow was nerfed in resources. That's why the samurai archers were indirectly nerfed. Also the standard samurais are worse than the samurai archers.

[Squirrelloid]

Making elemental royalty non-unique may be good for overall balance, but it is horribly unthematic.

That depends on what you think the theme is.

The platonic element conception (ie, that originally used by D+D in 1st and 2nd edition, originated with Plato) envisions the elements in reality being produced by or tied to elemental planes that are infinite in extent and purely composed of that element. An infinite plane would have infinitely many royals on it if it had any royals, so... where's the problem?

Since the term 'elemental' is tied up with the platonic concept of element anyway, the fact that the game uses elementals suggests its implicitly accepting the platonic concept, and thus the elemental royalty being unique is actually unthematic.

I'm not saying making them non-unique is necessarily the way to go, I'm just saying there aren't really major thematic problems with doing so.

[Ink]

Making elemental royalty non-unique may be good for overall balance, but it is horribly unthematic.

That depends on what you think the theme is.

The platonic element conception (ie, that originally used by D+D in 1st and 2nd edition, originated with Plato) envisions the elements in reality being produced by or tied to elemental planes that are infinite in extent and purely composed of that element. An infinite plane would have infinitely many royals on it if it had any royals, so... where's the problem?

Since the term 'elemental' is tied up with the platonic concept of element anyway, the fact that the game uses elementals suggests its implicitly accepting the platonic concept, and thus the elemental royalty being unique is actually unthematic.

I'm not saying making them non-unique is necessarily the way to go, I'm just saying there aren't really major thematic problems with doing so.

yeah but the dominion's elemental royalty have personalities (or at least stories) to an extent, meaning they aren't really the pure, unanimous and anonymous platonic type element. Based on it perhaps, but then also ground through the fantasy-machine.

not that I don't support them being non-unique, there could be infinite elemental personalities floating around on the elemental planes (it would be odd that there are only three or so personality-types of each element, but I digress), and the type summoned is just picked randomly.

[Sir_Dr_D]

What if we created four new spells, that summon a lesser form of the elemental royalty. (Call them elemental elite, or something like that.) These would be non-unique, and would give another option other then Tartarians.

[vfb]

Like Stavis said, there are already lots of other (admittedly mostly-weaker) options, plus some that he didn't mention, like Gargoyles and Trolls.

[Trumanator]

It would be nice if you could just summon the Troll kings for a lower price, instead of paying out the nose for a bunch of high upkeep troops.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Making Tartarians unique is what I would like to see. But that is likely not possible.

What if they were given an expensive gold cost, so you cannot maintain as many?

It makes sense for them to be expensive.

[Squirrelloid]

there's plenty of fodder for alternative SCs if we wanted to introduce new creatures, but that's sort of outside the scope of CBM as currently envisioned.

(For example, Hetaconcheires. In mythology there are only three of them, but there's no reason there need to only be three of them. Sounds like an earth summons. Admittedly, I'm not sure how to do them justice without making them overpowered since even the gods feared them - and 100 attacks is rather a lot).

[BigDaddy]

100 attacks would still only clear out one square.

[Squirrelloid]

100 attacks would still only clear out one square.

Yes, but at that point you might as well call them the SC Slayer-3000 since they'll kill absolutely anything in that square!

[Snowcat]

I think It's pretty clear that all (LA) Jomon samurais/soldiers should be made a bit better/cheaper instead of making the Jomon archer worse (in order to achieve that archers arent over-used).

I think even minor and simple changes to their stats, prices or resource costs would end the whole fuss over Jomon being not at par with the other nations.
I hold a similar opinion about Gath, Oceania and a few other nations which a number of people consider under/overpowered.

And the Jomon archer should have at least the same precision than other samurais. Archers with worse aiming than soldiers is just plain wrong.

[Festin]

Jomon's problems are not caused by bad troop selection. In fact, they have excellent infantry (Aka-Oni samurai). The problem is far more complex and no tweaks to the samurai will ever solve it.

That said, I fully agree the generic samurai and samurai archers should have more reasonable stats.

[Trumanator]

A larger problem for Jomon is the inexcusable lack of shields in a Xbow heavy era.

[Sombre]

They have a whole boatload of problems, not one big one.

[Ink]

Jomon's problems are not caused by bad troop selection. In fact, they have excellent infantry (Aka-Oni samurai). The problem is far more complex and no tweaks to the samurai will ever solve it.

That said, I fully agree the generic samurai and samurai archers should have more reasonable stats.

I wouldn't characterize it like that: because what? it's too complex to describe or hold in the mind? this is a controlled and unbiased game world here, not art or zen.

for most issues in dominions, the line between high-powered and good and complete garbage is stuff like one extra pick of Astral on some mage or two less encumbrance on some unit.

I'm confident Jomon could be brought on par with other nations with some polishing.

[llamabeast]

I think he was just saying that even with good samurai, Jomon would be poor. For instance, perhaps they need better magic.

[Zeldor]

llamabeast:

How is your late game summons mod? :) It'd be nice to be able to use it in some games, even if it's not 100% finished.

[kianduatha]

I think he was just saying that even with good samurai, Jomon would be poor. For instance, perhaps they need better magic.

The funny part is, Jomon even has good magic. It's just underwater and super-expensive(Ryujin are for the record absurdly expensive for what they are). And their normal mages are mapmove 1, which frankly doesn't even make sense.

Jomon has all the tools it needs, it just isn't at the right place at the right time.

For instance, they get the ability to bootstrap Death from nothing. Unfortunately you need a swamp, a lucky double random, and Conj-6 Const-6 before you can do anything worthwhile with it(I guess you could spring for a Robe of Water or something, but that's even more in the Water-gem hole). Nushi would be awesome at Conj-4 with 2 death instead of 1(to immediately start summoning Shura).

Similarly, Jomon's national dragon summon is awesome in concept but absolutely terrible in practice. One misc slot, lowish protection(especially in LA), poor magic, and low native offensive skills make these things just plain useless. Now, that could easily be changed to give them some more offensive flexibility.

Jomon as is has a lot of issues, but they also have many ways of tweaking those issues. Their recruitable mages should probably retain the same magic(though Ryujin and Monks of the Fivefold Path need at least price decreases), and their magic paths can be boosted up with summons.

[chrispedersen]

I'd like to see pangeae get Lord of Rebirth as a pretender.
Oddly enough it would be nice to give mictlan some pretenders as well. Something to compete with the std bless chassis.

[Sombre]

Something to compete with the std bless chassis.

God, what a disgusting visual.

[Snowcat]

I'd like to see pangeae get Lord of Rebirth as a pretender.
Oddly enough it would be nice to give mictlan some pretenders as well. Something to compete with the std bless chassis.

God, what a disgusting visual.

The aforementioned Mictlan's new national Pretender with an >STD< bless:

The Old Man of Festering Fertility

The Old Man of Festering Fertility is dirty old man, a black sorceror whose corruptedness and amorality were so great that it pleased the darker demons of the underworld to an extensive degree. The demons decided to afflict the old man with a blessing of Festering Fertility. Part of him is now in a constant state of rot while remaining vigorously alive. The Pretender is able to pass his bless to his holy followers through direct contact. The Festering Fertility causes the blessed ones slight madness, gluttony and unquenchable burning desire, which also drives them to go berserk in battles. It also keeps all his holy followers to be constantly diseased and regenerated in the same time.
The maddening desires of the Old Man fuel his magical power to an extent which allows him to approach godhood.
If his wickedness is not stopped, the world will surely become a vile place to live in.
:bug::brain::heart::bananas:

[Sombre]

Rotten fruit!

[llamabeast]

Gosh, that was horrible.

[BigDaddy]

Mictlan's pretenders don't "pretend" to be good while simultaneously raping the world they exist on, like, say, the Lady of Fortune.

[militarist]

Pretenders... cbm did really well in improving the balance, but I think there is still a long way to add some real diversity. there are a lot of unusable, for which some niche usage are possible..in theory..but nobody really uses them.
One common thing to consider - is giving all pretenders who have blood, like deva some bloodhunt bonus, less then fountain, of course. Freak lord, vampire queen. It's very thematic.
And those pretenders that have other weak blesses, like air, all of them but great enchantress... if to add them 1-2 more air, will not make them op, but in some cases at least some will stat thinking about using them. If it will make some of them OP for one of nations (sacred hidras comes to mind), those can be not available for specific nations.

Otherwise cyclops, master druid,mother of rivers will always be a priority (or some sc). Adding recuperation to some Sc's would be also cool, otherwise many of them just unusable..at early stage because of nott compensated encumbrance problems in addition to risk of affictions and to lose it, later - because just bigger armies. Adding recuperation to more pretenders would make Sc choice more fun of later use of them. Not just early game, especially those relying on force rather then magic.

[SciencePro]

I am reading through the .dm file trying to understand it and I notice a lot of blank entires that #selectwhatever then #end without any changes. Do these do anything? Are they necessary placeholders? Examples:

#selectspell "Summon Earthpower"
#end

#selectitem "Lightless Lantern"
#end

[Sombre]

Nope just placeholders. Do nothing.

[kianduatha]

I just realized that Ninjas aren't spies. This seems wrong to me for some reason.

[BigDaddy]

OK, so MA Oceania is harmed by the clam nerf. How can it be repaired?

I think we can just quick fix any nerfed nation by adding pearls (or other gems) to it.

Maybe we should work on a handicapping chart and buff the weaklings. I think it would be best to use another mod in addition to the CBM, so that it can be updated more rapidly, especially if we were to become popular.

Any thoughts?

I'll toss up a new thread.

[kianduatha]

I've been thinking a lot about Jomon recently(maybe because I'm playing a game as them!), specifically their national summons. So many of them are rather redundant/useless, like the Mori-no-Kami. Oh, it's to get a N3 mage...in a forest...when you already had an N3 mage. It'd be easy enough to tag something like heal(30) on him to make the guy useful, or summon allies like a wolfherd, or low enough cost to let you burn nature gems for research.

[Graeme Dice]

I'm not sure if it should be changed or not, but MA Atlantis can't actually recruit reef warriors in coastal forts.

[Ragnarok-X]

How do i set up the new heroes folder ?

[Trumanator]

How do i set up the new heroes folder ?

In your dominions folder there should be a folder labeled doc. This contains the modding manual, which should answer your questions for setting up a mod.

[Ragnarok-X]

Thank you very much for being kind enough to point me to the tutorial instead of using your 20 word post to explain it directly.

I dont need to know how to set up mods, i need to know where there is a herores folder inside the balance mods archive.

[Swan]

good old find the name of a hero-->search was too obvious?

[Trumanator]

Thank you very much for being kind enough to point me to the tutorial instead of using your 20 word post to explain it directly.

I dont need to know how to set up mods, i need to know where there is a herores folder inside the balance mods archive.

Sorry, but I read "how do I set up the new heroes folder" as how to set up a mod instead of "where is the heroes folder."

[anonymity]

I've been thinking a lot about Jomon recently(maybe because I'm playing a game as them!), specifically their national summons. So many of them are rather redundant/useless, like the Mori-no-Kami. Oh, it's to get a N3 mage...in a forest...when you already had an N3 mage. It'd be easy enough to tag something like heal(30) on him to make the guy useful, or summon allies like a wolfherd, or low enough cost to let you burn nature gems for research.

Well no, to be fair, you had a N2 mage with a Thistle Mace, and now you have an N3 mage with a Thistle Mace (so N4). I agree that a lot of the summons are mediocre and could use tweaking, but none of them are outright useless.

[LDiCesare]

How do i set up the new heroes folder ?
What do you mean by heroes folder? Everything is in a single .dm file, or do you look for the graphics?

[Trumanator]

Well there is a folder for the graphics, which is just in the mods folder like everything else. The actual code is indeed in the single CBM .dm file. Swan's solution is probably the best, though doing a search just for "heroes" or "hero" might also do it if QM has included headers in the .dm

[Ragnarok-X]

Basicly, what im asking is, if i enable the CBcomplete_1.6.dm within Dom3 and my mods folder has the heroes subfolder, which contains only images, no .dm, will i play with the new heroes & images or not ?

[Stavis_L]

Basicly, what im asking is, if i enable the CBcomplete_1.6.dm within Dom3 and my mods folder has the heroes subfolder, which contains only images, no .dm, will i play with the new heroes & images or not ?


1) The fact that you can enable the mod in the DOM3 application means that it can see the .dm file in your mods folder, so that is working.

2) The .dm file for CBM references images in a subdirectory from where the .dm file is located, e.g. #spr1 "./Worthy_Heroes/Keymaker.tga" --> looks for an image named "Keymaker.tga" in a subdirectory named "Worthy_Heroes" under you mods directory, which is in turn under your DOM3 application directory.

Assuming that the above are true (including uppercase/lowercase distinction in some systems) and that the user you are running the application as has access to that subdirectory, you should be able to load the image when running the mod.

Note that if you're running Vista/Win7, your application directory may not be where you think it is (but since you're able to enable the mod itself, this does not appear to be the case here.)

BTW, you'll need to start a new game once the mod is enabled to have it take effect. After that, it should automatically load the mod when you start that game.

[Squirrelloid]

Basicly, what im asking is, if i enable the CBcomplete_1.6.dm within Dom3 and my mods folder has the heroes subfolder, which contains only images, no .dm, will i play with the new heroes & images or not ?

I hate to say it, but RTFM.

In particular, the CBM .dm file has a credits section at the top which tells you the history of the mod, notably including which mods are incorporated into CBM. Worthy Heroes is one of them. This is basic documentation that should be consulted before asking questions. (Older versions of CBM have a readme file, which unfortunately due to the extensive changes is actually less readable than the short documentation at the top of the .dm, if not vastly more specific about what has been done - bar reading and interpreting the code portions of the .dm file).

You could also do a quick search of the .tga file names from the Worthy Heroes folder over the text of the CBM .dm file to see that they are indeed referenced by units defined in the CBM .dm file.

You could also just assume that because it came bundled with the WH folder and there was no readme telling you otherwise, it was included because anything else would be stupid.

But mostly just read the documentation that came with the mod. Sheesh.

Edit: Why the heck are people asking about a separate Worthy Heroes mod anyway? At this point that's as much of anachronism as asking about the conceptual pretender mod or the troop balance mod. They're all CBM now - there is no longer a WH mod as a separate entity. From the CBM .dm documentation, it looks like WH is a dom2 mod (maybe a dom3 beta mod?)???

[kianduatha]

Well no, to be fair, you had a N2 mage with a Thistle Mace, and now you have an N3 mage with a Thistle Mace (so N4). I agree that a lot of the summons are mediocre and could use tweaking, but none of them are outright useless.
I guess, if you were unlucky and didn't manage to get an N3 Master Shugenja by then(and needed an N4 guy right away?).

I'll bite, though. What are Tatsus actually useful for?

[Bananadine]

Dudes seem pretty excited about this unique gem generator thing. Are the generators really just one item per kind? I mean, one clam per game, one blood stone per game, etc.? Cuz, maybe this has been covered already in the million billion pages this thread already has (I did scan back several pages), but it seems like a good middle ground would be to have say eight unique clams, all with the same function, but each with a different identity. Or any finite number of them that'd be small enough to keep the item menu manageable. Heck, they needn't even be all the same. I think it'd be cool to have a different stat boost on each of several fever fetishes, and a little tweak to the flavor text of each one--not so much for strategic purposes as for style. Has this been considered?

If the whole point of making clams etc. is to achieve geometric growth in one's gem income, then this idea wouldn't matter. But certainly there's a point in making blood stones, other than just gem generation. Why not have several unique generators of each type? Hm maybe that change just isn't allowed by the modding system?

[BigDaddy]

The thing with clams. They -make- high competition games more based on micro management, WHEN, in fact, they seem to have been designed to keep pearls on certain mages. The three kinds earth, fire, pearls. And the Sea King with his water gems. He is quite good as well.

Thus, hoarding caused a device that should minimize MM to cause MM.

If I understand correctly, you can't change the clam to make it not produce gems. I think you can add boosters, but you can't add gem generation or take gem generation away. I'm not certain about being able to add boosters...

[Trumanator]

Dudes seem pretty excited about this unique gem generator thing. Are the generators really just one item per kind? I mean, one clam per game, one blood stone per game, etc.? Cuz, maybe this has been covered already in the million billion pages this thread already has (I did scan back several pages), but it seems like a good middle ground would be to have say eight unique clams, all with the same function, but each with a different identity. Or any finite number of them that'd be small enough to keep the item menu manageable. Heck, they needn't even be all the same. I think it'd be cool to have a different stat boost on each of several fever fetishes, and a little tweak to the flavor text of each one--not so much for strategic purposes as for style. Has this been considered?

If the whole point of making clams etc. is to achieve geometric growth in one's gem income, then this idea wouldn't matter. But certainly there's a point in making blood stones, other than just gem generation. Why not have several unique generators of each type? Hm maybe that change just isn't allowed by the modding system?

Exactly.

[Bananadine]

Cripes, you can't even make a new thing that's like a clam? Harsh.

[Trumanator]

Lets just say the modding tools are extremely limited.

[Bananadine]

I guess you probably also can't make unique commanders that any nation can summon, on the order of Queens of Elemental Air and so forth? Cuz if you could then there could be a Summon Clam Man spell that'd get you one of a limited number of immobile units that generated gems like clams do. :)

Okay I'll learn how modding works before I suggest anything more.

[Trumanator]

Okay I'll learn how modding works before I suggest anything more.

Thank you. Too few people are willing to do this.

[Globu]

Hey, QM -- apologies if this has already been mentioned before (I did a quick thread search on it and found nothing), but I noticed the changes to Rams Head the White Satyr seem to have removed his ability to summon allies. Was this intentional?

(For anyone else interested in a quick fix without having to look up the unit ID in the database, for my own version I just added #makemonster5 230.)

[Burnsaber]

One thing that has bugged me for a long while has been the Artifact "The Sharpest Tooth", which advertises itself as being able to poison units that are poison-immune. Which is not true. The weapon is bugged and does not poison poison-immune units, which is a really nasty suprise if you forge it for some anti-SC usage.

Not a big deal, but I have had to share this bit of info on IrC twice already and the item is really misleading. Perhaps the next version of CBM could fix the description for the item and just say that it won't work on poison immune units because it's super-hyper-unlikely that the bug would be fixed.

[Sombre]

Sharpest tooth should just be AN damage with death poison, frankly, and say it is deadly to those not poison immune and dangerous to those that are.

[llamabeast]

It is quite easy to fix. You can have damage-over-time that is not poison, IIRC.

[Sombre]

Like from the bleed spell.

llama - while you are browsing - Cambridge this weekend? I can't remember if it was decided.

[militarist]

Bloodstone.. I believe it should be non-unique, but it just shouldn't generate gems. Making it unique, makes -1 earth boosters in game, whiсh is not good.

[Graeme Dice]

The bloodstone cannot have its gem production taken away. No new item can be made that boosts earth. The only two possibilities that are likely to be changed are either the pebble skin suit or the tome of gaia.

[Snowcat]

I am trying and also proposing a following modifications to
Late Era JOMON 1.6 CBM:

Mages:
Kannushi + 50% 1 death magic & +50% 1 elemental magic
(retains also 2 holy as previously)
(previously only 10% 1 elemental magic and 2 holy)
cost 120 gp (previously 80gp)

Monk of Fivefold Path cost 90g (previously 100gp)

Onmyo-Ji +10% death magic in addition to everything else (previously none)

Troops:
Samurai Archer goldcost 14gp (previously 12gp)
resource cost 20 (previously 23)
precision 11 (previously 10)

Samurai (Katana) resource cost 16 (previously 18)
str 11 (previously 10)
Samurai (Naginata) str 11 (previously 10)

O-ban str 11 (previously 10)

Aka-Oni goldcost 15gp (previously 14gp)

COMMENT:
Added death magic gives Jomon access to many small national
summons (which are more useful in the early game) and is also thematic, since death and ancestrual/spiritual magic had it's respected place in the Japanese/Asian religions.

The tweaks to troop selection make archers and other
samurais more even, so that it woulndn't make sense to
only recruit Aka-Onis and Samurai Archers.

Please give me feedback everyone and tell me what you
think of this. I would be especially interested in discussion
about minor (but oh how important!) tweaks to troop price/gold costs.

yours truly,
Snowcat =^.^=
:strawberry::strawberry::strawberry:

[Squirrelloid]

Snowcat:
I think the gold costs are fine as is - its the resource costs that don't make much sense.

No one should buy samurai archers anyway. Even if you de-nerfed them, they'd be a marginal and highly situational unit at best. In the high armor LA a longbow doesn't mean much, and if you're casting flaming arrows you want cheap massable archers, not 20 resource ones.

The top units right now are aka-oni, go-hatamoto, cavalry, and yamabushi. There is some place for ashigaru and samurai with naginata. Everything else is basically useless.

The o-ban and katana samurai are not salvageable in any obvious way because their thematic space is occupied by superior units - there's only so much you can do with the concept of 'armored guy wielding a sword'.

[Festin]

I think these are good suggestions.

It would also be good if Tatsu was boosted in some way. It is a very nice-looking summon, but with its current cost it will never ever be summoned. Especially after removal of bloodstones.

[Trumanator]

Another suggestion: remove upkeep from summons. Its annoying, and prevents some of them from being used much at all. It also doesn't even make much thematic sense.

[Graeme Dice]

Removing the upkeep costs from sea trolls and trolls would also have the side effect of making conjuration a better school to research, and of helping to boost those nations that have strong earth/water mages. Water could use the boost. Earth is quite good already, but it probably wouldn't hurt. I would think that this would definitely be a good thing.

[PyroStock]

Although I don't think it's possible to find on random maps, trolls can be assigned as native to a province on user-made maps and then hired for gold. Making trolls upkeep free would also put their gold cost at 0 at such provinces, unless duplicate units were made.

[Sombre]

Yeah although it's a theme of the troll summons, it does make them pretty annoying. Suiciding the troll kings troops just to get rid of them, for instance.

[Sombre]

Although I don't think it's possible to find on random maps, trolls can be assigned as native to a province on user-made maps and then hired for gold. Making trolls upkeep free would also put their gold cost at 0 at such provinces.

Fixable with mod commands, to a great extent. Also I think that's so rare a clash it should be ignored.

[Burnsaber]

There is a uncommon earth magic site that allows you to recruit trolls. Getting them for 0 gp could be considered somewhat OP.

Although just modding that site out of the game is pretty trivial.

[Meglobob]

There is a uncommon earth magic site that allows you to recruit trolls. Getting them for 0 gp could be considered somewhat OP.

Although just modding that site out of the game is pretty trivial.

The site is actually not overpowered at all because trolls are very, very costly in upkeep. I should know, I got this site in a MP once and went wow, trolls, recruit, recruit and then wondered where all my gold went to to recruit any future mages.:o:D

[Sombre]

That doesn't make sense meglobob. The trolls cost the same upkeep to price as everything else.

If they cost 0 gold, as burn said, the site would be ridiculous.

[Joelz]

Trolls could be made very resource intensive. But then again, the province could end up being mountain, surrounded by mountains :P

[Meglobob]

That doesn't make sense meglobob. The trolls cost the same upkeep to price as everything else.

If they cost 0 gold, as burn said, the site would be ridiculous.

Oh yea if they are changed to 0 cost, I suppose it would but trolls actually are not that good anyway, rarely used in MP.

What do they cost normally, been sometime since I have seen that site, damn nearly credit crunched me thou, never forget it!

[Stavis_L]

That doesn't make sense meglobob. The trolls cost the same upkeep to price as everything else.

If they cost 0 gold, as burn said, the site would be ridiculous.

Oh yea if they are changed to 0 cost, I suppose it would but trolls actually are not that good anyway, rarely used in MP.

What do they cost normally, been sometime since I have seen that site, damn nearly credit crunched me thou, never forget it!

Per Edi's DB:

troll 60
troll guard 70
troll king 150
troll moose knight 110
war troll 70

sea troll 50
sea king 150
slave troll 70

[Squirrelloid]

which trolls does the site(s? UW?) actually let you recruit, because the others could be set to 0 gold with no problems.

[kianduatha]

It's always bugged me that the dragon pretenders are actually less scary up close than at a range--at this point(especially with the latest CBM changes) dragons in melee are brick walls with fear auras. That doesn't really sit well with me, since it doesn't make sense that a dragon would stop breathing fire/cold/poison when it gets closer to an enemy.

At first I thought of suggesting giving a bonus melee attack which gives an area fire/cold/poison, but that seems hackneyed. So what about a heat/cold/poison aura instead? I mean, the Tarrasque gets a poison aura, so there's even precedent. And it'd make Dragon Pretenders more viable/relevant in combat other than 'that guy with Fear +5 that soaks up hits'.

[BigDaddy]

I thought just give them a flaming hands attack, but then, the red dragon can cast that with just a little research that he can probably even do himself... while he sits there soaking up hits... that IS what he should be doing. You can say...

At evo 5 your commands could be (attak rear)(cast flame eruption)x4

[Jarkko]

At evo 5 your commands could be (attak rear)(cast flame eruption)x4

You can't scrpit that. On single turn attacks you can only tell the commander to attack (and he will attack the closest target), and if there are no hostiles in range for Flame Eruption (very likely if there was for example one wolf running way ahead of the rest of the hostile army (and if you are playing in a MP, you can be guaranteed there is some fast lone something running ahead of his army if he knows you use spells like Flame Eruption or Shockwave or some such)), the spell-casting AI will override the script and start casting fire flies or some other equally "useful" spell.

[BigDaddy]

At evo 5 your commands could be (attak rear)(cast flame eruption)x4

You can't scrpit that. On single turn attacks you can only tell the commander to attack (and he will attack the closest target), and if there are no hostiles in range for Flame Eruption (very likely if there was for example one wolf running way ahead of the rest of the hostile army (and if you are playing in a MP, you can be guaranteed there is some fast lone something running ahead of his army if he knows you use spells like Flame Eruption or Shockwave or some such)), the spell-casting AI will override the script and start casting fire flies or some other equally "useful" spell.

OK, yes. As long as he's in dragon form you should be just fine on defense, but when attacking he'll get confused by fast units.

[LumenPlacidum]

Will they use their fire breath in melee if it is #bonus?

[Sombre]

No.

[13lackGu4rd]

Dragons certainly need some sort of a rework to make them viable again... the whole 80/new path and only dom1 makes them a very crappy chassis even for a single bless. as for SCing, it can do that early game vs indies, but barbs still tear them apart most of the time, and with crappy equipment slots they're very crappy SCs later on. I think they deserve more than dom1, and either improve the built in weapons+armor, so the lack of equipment slots won't be as faulty, or make them better as a bless chassis or something, with maybe less than 80/new path so you can diversify a bit and when you're done indy expansion you change him to human form and work the lab...

[Frozen Lama]

I see dragons used very often in MP. they work well as a single bless chassis and sc. they are reliable expanders, assuming you take Dom9 of course. barbs are the indies that almost all sc gods besides wyrms stay away from, its not the dragon only.

[Trumanator]

Dragons don't even need dom9 anymore thanks to cbm upping their prot to 20. You can take on pretty much any indies that other early SCs can.

[13lackGu4rd]

I see dragons used very often in MP. they work well as a single bless chassis and sc. they are reliable expanders, assuming you take Dom9 of course. barbs are the indies that almost all sc gods besides wyrms stay away from, its not the dragon only.

haven't had the pleasure of seeing a Dragon pretender on MP yet, but than again my MP career is pretty short... however, yeah they can be a decent single bless chassis, but most of the times you'll have a better option. for example the blue dragon, why not take any of the various W1/W2 pretenders instead? for example the Mother of Rivers, Father of Winters, Son of the Sea, Dagon, Lady of Springs, etc. all of these are either better SCs later on due to better item slots or do useful things like generating water gems, taking troops under water, etc. yes the Dragon will win on the short run, but if you're going for a W9 bless than you rely on your sacreds for a quick expansion, hence no need for a turn 1 SC pretender in the first place...

Dragons don't even need dom9 anymore thanks to cbm upping their prot to 20. You can take on pretty much any indies that other early SCs can.

yeah, they're great early game SCs but lose their utility really fast and become pretty useless with just 1 path of magic, or an expensive as hell 2nd path, and no good item slots...

[Trumanator]

You're forgetting that dragons have flying, which means that you can skip tougher indies, fly from higher dom to attack (meaning more HPs), and can provide really good expansion by adding both a bless and an SC.

[13lackGu4rd]

yes, really good expansion, which often translates to being first on the province graph which leads to getting gang banged... not to mention that once indy expansion is over your pretender becomes very useless... heck, if you want a flying pretender take a PoD, Moloch, or something... those will be useful later on, unlike the dragons...

[Trumanator]

Just saying, don't assume that because you personally haven't seen it that something never happens. FWIW I'm using a dragon in one of my games, and its been quite useful, and I probably would not have been able to replicate my performance w/out it.

[13lackGu4rd]

I never said it never happens, I said that even if it is used it's suboptimal at best... well I guess in a blitz game they're still actually useful, but outside of that niche there would usually be other pretenders that would be much better choices than any of the dragons... which is a shame cause the dragons are very cool even somewhat thematic, but they just seem to under perform...

[Snowcat]

I was tweaking, comparing and testing my previously proposed changes for CBM1.6 Jomon LATE ERA for many hours and consulted several people. Here are my final changes. Please give feedback about the fairness of these changes and if you would support them to be added into the next CBM.

Commanders:

Ninjas
goldcost 45 (instead of 40 as in CBM or 60 in vanilla)

Important Note: The changes that original CBM1.6 made to Kannushi and Ninja prices were not working, because the #id numbers in the original CBM file were incorrect.

Kannushi
+ 50% 1 death magic & +50% 1 elemental magic
(retains also 2 holy as previously)
(previously only 10% 1 elemental magic and 2 holy)
cost 120 gp (previously 80gp)

Monk of Fivefold Path
cost 90g (previously 100gp)

Troops:
Samurai Archer
goldcost 14gp (previously 12gp)
precision 11 (previously 10)
morale 11 (previously 10)
Wearing ashigaru armor (instead of samurai armor)
and using wakisashi (instead of katana)
total resource cost 17 (previously 23)
hp 9 as before

Samurai (Naginata)
str 11 (previously 10)
hp 10 (reviously 9)

Samurai (Katana)
str 11 (previously 10)
hp 10 (reviously 9)
rcost 0 (previosly 1) > total resource cost 17 (previously 18)

O-ban
str 11 (previously 10)
+ patrolbonus 2
+ castle defence bonus 2
rcost 0 (previosly 1) > total resource cost 21 (previously 22)
ap 13 instead of 12 (combat move now 9 instead of 8)

Go-hatamoto
goldcost 14gp (previously 13gp)
morale 14 (instead of 13)
ap 11 instead of 12 (combat move now 7 instead of 8)
rcost 2 (previosly 1) > total resource cost 22 (previously 21)

Aka-Oni
goldcost 15gp (previously 14gp)

RATIONALE:
Added 50% chance for 1 death magic gives Jomon access to many small national summons (which are more useful in the early game) and site searching. It is also thematic, since death and ancestrual/spiritual magic had it's respected place in the Japanese/Asian religions.

The tweaks to troop selection make archers and other
samurais more even, so that it woulndn't make sense to
only recruit Aka-Onis.

All melee samurais have better str and hp than samurai
archers. Also, O-ban received patrolling and castle defence
bonus, they are the only samurais that would otherwise be very rarely be used (either because other samurais are cheaper/faster or go-hatamoto is just better).

All in all, the tweaks make the nation more balanced internally
(almost all unit could have a function) and externally when compared to other nations. The most used units would be probably still Aka-Onis, but archers and normal samurais and Go-Hatamotos (and sometimes possibly even O-bans) will be much more viable
troops to use. The general rationale for using troops would be
as follows:

archers - capable archers
normal samurai - good, cheap, fast fighters
o-ban - heavy slow fighter (a bit faster/cheaper than hatamoto)
+ can be used as patrollers/castle defenders
hatamoto - heavy slow fighters with morale equal to aka-oni
aka-oni - all round good fast fighters (but the most expensive)


So yeah, looking forward for your additional feedback :)
Snowcat:lightning:

P.S.
If anybody wants to play a CBM game with more balanced
LE Jomon, then the mod and it's icon are attached to
this post. Enjoy! :)

Edit:
If you think Aka-Onis should still cost 14gp instead of 15gp
then be my guest to change it back in the .dm file. It's very
easy. Although you wont save alot by doing that, likely ;)

[kianduatha]

It seems weird to make even the baseline samurai 11 str 10 hp. Moreover, I just don't see homogenizing Jomon's troops as actually helping to solve anything.

I can understand reverting the costs on Aka-Oni and Go-Hatamoto, but at the same time making Jomon's only useable troops even more expensive isn't really a solution to the actual problem. Instead, wouldn't it make more thematic sense(given the costs of human troops in previous eras) to just decrease the cost of Ashigaru and Samurai to 7 and 9 gold respectively?

As far as I can tell, the only actually useless recruit is the O-ban. Couldn't that be fixed simply by giving them a different niche? The O-ban's description says they are heavily armed...what about giving them a wakizashi too and just having them dual-wield?

I dunno...it seems like the best fixes for overall balance are cheapening Monks, increasing the scaling on Fear-Not-Sign from 1002 to 2002(so Dai Tengu/a Master Shugenja Prophet can blanket a fair area if you want to), and buffing Jomon's starting army. Even something simple like bumping it up to 15 Samurai Archers would make a big difference.

[Snowcat]

It seems weird to make even the baseline samurai 11 str 10 hp. Moreover, I just don't see homogenizing Jomon's troops as actually helping to solve anything.

I can understand reverting the costs on Aka-Oni and Go-Hatamoto, but at the same time making Jomon's only useable troops even more expensive isn't really a solution to the actual problem. Instead, wouldn't it make more thematic sense(given the costs of human troops in previous eras) to just decrease the cost of Ashigaru and Samurai to 7 and 9 gold respectively?

As far as I can tell, the only actually useless recruit is the O-ban. Couldn't that be fixed simply by giving them a different niche? The O-ban's description says they are heavily armed...what about giving them a wakizashi too and just having them dual-wield?

I dunno...it seems like the best fixes for overall balance are cheapening Monks, increasing the scaling on Fear-Not-Sign from 1002 to 2002(so Dai Tengu/a Master Shugenja Prophet can blanket a fair area if you want to), and buffing Jomon's starting army. Even something simple like bumping it up to 15 Samurai Archers would make a big difference.

Thanx for the feedback!

Strength of the samurais reflects their training which focused often on deadly, powerful sword-hits and slashes. The archer has 9 hp and melee samurais 10hp presuming close-combat samurais are overall more athletic and durable than the ones who are more used to shooting. So they've compensated their smaller frame with martial and athletic training.

Because of the changed stats on samurais and heavy samurais, Aka-Oni is not "the only usable troop" any more. And seriosly, adding 1 gold to their price isn't really nerfing them.

I think you're right about the starting army.
Perhaps 12 samurais and 12 archers would be fitting? With this mod, archers are weaker in melee too.

Btw, Does anybody here think giving Jomon access to death magic
would overpower them? Your opinions are higly anticipated :)

[Jack_Trowell]

Maybe the death access could be even less than 50%. A simple 20~25% would be enough to get the occasional site searcher I think.

[Redeyes]

Randomness is the devil that unbalances game - you should probably give the Kannushi at least one guaranteed path if you want to see them recruited as researchers/site searchers, to avoid scenarios where bad luck delays your death income needlessly. A guaranteed D1 is easily balanced by the extra temple investment you need to recruit them, and the combat applications are extremely minor.

[Festin]

I think this is a very nice mod. If I ever decide to host a LA game, I will probably use it.

Some suggestions:
1)Possibly instead of increasing strength of samurai units(I do not think it is very thematic), a better way to slightly boost them would be to reduce their armor encumberance, which is currently way too high.
2)It would be great to see summons tweaked a bit. Tatsu could use some boost, because they are useless. Dai Oni can be made somewhat cheaper to make them a possible alternative to Tartarians.

[kianduatha]

While we're on encumbrance...did you know that the armor on Shinuyama and Yomi's Bandits(the melee ones) is superior to Samurai Armor, despite the flavor text of the units outright saying they have bad armor swiped from corpses? Heavy Ashigaru Armor is 14 prot -2 def 2 enc. Samurai armor is 14 prot -2 def 3 enc, and costs more resources.

The only other units(that matters) which use Samurai Armor are the Dai Bakemono for Shinuyama, who have 2 encumbrance right now. Bumping their base encumbrance up to 3 would keep them the same.

[Festin]

Interesting and strange. But I do not think this should be solved by nerfing the Bandits - they are rarely used as they are, and, probably, are even in need of slight boost.

[Snowcat]

While we're on encumbrance...did you know that the armor on Shinuyama and Yomi's Bandits(the melee ones) is superior to Samurai Armor, despite the flavor text of the units outright saying they have bad armor swiped from corpses? Heavy Ashigaru Armor is 14 prot -2 def 2 enc. Samurai armor is 14 prot -2 def 3 enc, and costs more resources.

The only other units(that matters) which use Samurai Armor are the Dai Bakemono for Shinuyama, who have 2 encumbrance right now. Bumping their base encumbrance up to 3 would keep them the same.

Thanks a lot!

I was hesitant to reduce the encumberance of samurai armor, because chain mail cuirass is 14 prot -2 def 2 encumberance and costs 15 resources instead of the 10 that samurai armor costs. So
reducing samurai armor encumberance to 2 seemed a bit unfair.

How much is the resource cost for heavy ashigaru armor?

Either way, it seems reducing samurai armor encumberance makes sense. However perhaps I should increase its resource cost by 1 or 2 to make it more even with other similar armor.

I could also just reduce the base encumberance of LA Jomon samurais, since they're fighting with a single weapon which is a lot less tiring than fighting with a weapon and a shield.

And I agree that the bandits shouldn't be nerfed :)

PPS.
I will be posting a new summary together with mod files when there are enough changes.

[phoenixgod2000]

Hi, I've never used a mod before and I decided to try out the CBM because it seemed like the most comprehensive. So I downloaded it, but I can't use it. My computer can't find a program to open it.

So my question is, how do I use the CBM? Do I need anything specific?

Thanks,

Jon

[Graeme Dice]

What you need to do is to make sure that there's a "mods" folder inside of your Dominions 3 folder. You then unzip the files into this directory, which will give you at least one other folder and a .dm file. You then go into Dominions, and click on 'Preferences' then 'Mod preferences', then select the mod you want. Any game or pretender you make with that mod selected will then use it automatically whenever it's loaded. Dos that help?

[phoenixgod2000]

That was helpful, but I think I might be doing it wrong. I made a folder for mods in my Dominions3 folder and I put the cbm into it, but when I get to dominions to select my mod preferences it doesn't show up.

Do you do the same thing for maps. You put the new maps into the map folder in the program files and they'll show up?

I appreciate the help.

[Graeme Dice]

Do you have the 'CBcomplete_1.6.dm' file in your mods directory. And the mods directory is inside of the Dominions 3 folder?

[phoenixgod2000]

Yes. When I get to the mod preferences in the game, its blank.

[phoenixgod2000]

I just figured it out. Apparently the folder has to be called mods and not mod. That's all it took :)

Thanks for your help

Jon

[earcaraxe]

HI!

is there a list of this kind for all the CBM changes (not just 1.5 to 1.6?)

many thanks.


This version is coming out a little early (some games are waiting for it) so an up to date readme and a split version of the mod will be along later. The change log posted here is fairly complete though, so combined with the old readme there shouldn't be any problems.

General changes:

*Clams, Blood stones and Fever Fetishes Unique items.

*Lord of Corruption stealth boosted.

*Midget Masher revamped: now does AOE 1 damage but needs lots of strength to work at all.

*Dancing trident 2a to forge -> 1a.

*Serpent king given more dominion.

.... etcetc

*Thrown boulders have 5 ammo (it was an unintended nerf that they were 2 ammo last version).

[Sombre]

Download the mod, look in the txt file + dm.

[militarist]

Phoenix pretender...and awe/regen/frightening atributes in general

I'm trying to use Phoenix it now. It's a fun pretender. But it's very hard to understand why in CBM AWE+0 was added to him. The main idea of phonex is to die. What's the idea behind increasing it's surviving? If someone believe it's underpowered there are a lot of ideas what can be improved. Heat level for example :)

In general, there are some very important attributes without which any early expansion combatant pretender has really not much sense regardless of price. What's the sense to take even cheap titan if it will get afficted very soon and will become worthless? It would be more reasonable I think that most of pretenders pretending to take part in early expansion had something wich makes them not useless. Even taking 9-10 dominion is not worthy if you have a pretender without fright,regen or immortality.It would be interesting to see statistics of usage of pretenders. I bet 80% of them are never requested (unless just for experiment, and only once). I think it should be some conceptual reform for pretender. Don't say how, but maybe separate tread is to be created and discussed?

[fungalreason]

I came across a few bugs when going through the .dm:

These guys all have a typo: should be #stealthy instead of #stealth
Son of Fenrer
Master Druid
Arch Druid
Wolf Lord - Sporsnjall (just listed a second time incorrectly)

Lord of the Forest
(This might have been deliberate). The readmes (back to 1.3) all list him as being 50 points, but the mod sets the cost to 75... same as vanilla. It appears that it's just always been wrong.

Lady of Love
(This also may have been intentional, just undocumented) The "reduces unrest" effect was reduced from 100 to 25. There isn't any mention of it anywhere. It may not matter though; it doesn't seem like it's that useful of an ability. Taxing over 100% still kills off population at the same rate, as far as I can tell. You just don't need as many patrollers.

[Squirrelloid]

And Son of Fenrir is still spelled wrong, but what can you do?

[Baneslave]

Lady of Love
(This also may have been intentional, just undocumented) The "reduces unrest" effect was reduced from 100 to 25. There isn't any mention of it anywhere. It may not matter though; it doesn't seem like it's that useful of an ability. Taxing over 100% still kills off population at the same rate, as far as I can tell. You just don't need as many patrollers.

IIRC, patrolling kills population, so at least bandits, rebels and other trouble makers are spared. :p

[Micah]

Awe on the phoenix means that the enemy troops take a little bit longer to kill it, meaning they have more time to clump up around him, and that he has a much better chance to get a spell off at close range. Flame eruption does more damage than a pyre explosion and costs less fatigue if you're F3 or higher.

[Burnsaber]

I just got an idea to make the Panganea and Man spell songs to actually do something. Currently those spells are just too niche to really do anything (except for Soothing Song, it can occasionlly be useful). What if we made them into "cloud" spells that lasted say 2 turns? The current AoE's could be reduced and still have them useful. I admit that there are some spells that could be problematic (Tune of Growth mostly), but you could make it "def resists" to keep it balanced. I think it's not much of a strecth to assume that the haunting melody of the song could have an effect even after the caster has "stopped" singing.

[pyg]

Minor request: Could the Hero Blade be renumbered higher, say like 850 or so. This would make combineMods.py work better with it without having to figure out a crazy multi-line regex for one item in one mod.

[Edi]

Did anyone ever actually bother to do a chopped up version of CBM 1.6 to Pretenders, Spells, Nations, Heroes etc?

If they didn't, I've got a chopped up version though all components use the CBM Complete banner and some have been mashed together (like Pretenders & Scales). Also placed the CBM Indies in a separate mod so that it's easier to use Better Independents with the other parts.

If anyone is interested in making the banners for the separate pieces, it'd be trivial to post them.


Also, one note of complaint:

Any weapons and armor definitions should be at the very beginning of the mod before any monster or spell modifications. This helps avoid mod bugs. Especially in a project like CBM where not everyone wants to use everything, it would be easiest if that section was first, because then copying and pasting it to all the necessary chopped up sections (Pretenders, Nations, Spells, Independents) would be much easier.

As it is, chopping things up was a real hassle yesterday.

[Calahan]

A call for opinions.....

Assuming this is possible for CBM to do, what do people think about the idea of swapping LA Man's starting gem income of 2 Nature gems for something they can actually use instead.

Since having now checked to be sure, it appears LA Man are the only nation in the game who have a starting gem income that does not match any of the paths on their national mages. This seems mighty odd to me, as they'd surely be better off starting with Fire, Astral or Earth income instead of the Nature they currently have (to go with the 2 Air they also get).

Plus this change would bring them back in line with the matching "starting gem income-national mage" relationship that is standard for every other nation.

[Festin]

Will the next version of CBM actually ever be released? To me, it looks like this excellent mod was forsaken by its creator. Any news from him?

[Digress]

Have blood sites been removed somehow or am I just really unlucky ?

I haven't found a single blood site in two games playing with the current version of CBM.

[Globu]

Not in my experience. I've been getting them with CBM in a number of SP games.

[Digress]

Just my luck then ... damn.

[Sombre]

A call for opinions.....

Assuming this is possible for CBM to do, what do people think about the idea of swapping LA Man's starting gem income of 2 Nature gems for something they can actually use instead.

Since having now checked to be sure, it appears LA Man are the only nation in the game who have a starting gem income that does not match any of the paths on their national mages. This seems mighty odd to me, as they'd surely be better off starting with Fire, Astral or Earth income instead of the Nature they currently have (to go with the 2 Air they also get).

Plus this change would bring them back in line with the matching "starting gem income-national mage" relationship that is standard for every other nation.


They might be considered an exception that proves the rule, like pythium getting 8 gems in MA.

But then I think pythium should be taken down to 5 gems as well.

[Stavis_L]

A call for opinions.....

Assuming this is possible for CBM to do, what do people think about the idea of swapping LA Man's starting gem income of 2 Nature gems for something they can actually use instead.

Since having now checked to be sure, it appears LA Man are the only nation in the game who have a starting gem income that does not match any of the paths on their national mages. This seems mighty odd to me, as they'd surely be better off starting with Fire, Astral or Earth income instead of the Nature they currently have (to go with the 2 Air they also get).

Plus this change would bring them back in line with the matching "starting gem income-national mage" relationship that is standard for every other nation.

For balance, sure, makes sense.

For thematic reasons, though, there should definitely be nature income because after all, it's basically sites taken over from the now departed Tuatha. The fact that the impudent usurping humans don't comprehend how to best use and control the ancient faerie magics is perfectly appropriate.

I oppose this on thematic grounds.

[Squirrelloid]

A call for opinions.....

Assuming this is possible for CBM to do, what do people think about the idea of swapping LA Man's starting gem income of 2 Nature gems for something they can actually use instead.

Since having now checked to be sure, it appears LA Man are the only nation in the game who have a starting gem income that does not match any of the paths on their national mages. This seems mighty odd to me, as they'd surely be better off starting with Fire, Astral or Earth income instead of the Nature they currently have (to go with the 2 Air they also get).

Plus this change would bring them back in line with the matching "starting gem income-national mage" relationship that is standard for every other nation.

For balance, sure, makes sense.

For thematic reasons, though, there should definitely be nature income because after all, it's basically sites taken over from the now departed Tuatha. The fact that the impudent usurping humans don't comprehend how to best use and control the ancient faerie magics is perfectly appropriate.

I oppose this on thematic grounds.

Theme is totally fungible. For instance, you could just say Man's engineers found a way to convert its energy into more useable products (which is why it produces fewer gems than it used to). Man may have inherited the land from the Tuatha, but they are a nation of engineers who construct great machines (siege bonus engineers!) and likely make other great structures - surely this has consequences. And as their engineers are also mages, who's to say their engineering only affects the mundane world - someplace as important as their capital site they have had much time and likely expended much effort transforming it to suit their needs.

[Sombre]

Those same thematic grounds don't seem to apply to well to other nations where the gemtypes lurch around between eras anyway.

MA Ulm directly follows on from EA Ulm, so where's the nature income there? You're talking about a LA nation vs an EA nation, but I'm saying there aren't even site connections between many MA and LA nations.

[kianduatha]

After doing a bit of testing for the UWGIM, I realized that Phantasmal Warriors can get repel-killed. In fact, this seems to be one of the main ways they're killed in normal combats, as they only have 1hp. This seems excessively silly and Phantasmal Weapons should have a length of 6 to prevent this from happening.

[Sombre]

Why is it silly? As soon as they're hit, the target realises they aren't real, because they're passng right through the weapon. Pop, they vanish.

Phantasmals aren't supposed to be good.

[kianduatha]

Simply saying that Phantasmals are supposed to suck is I would think the exact opposite of what this mod is trying to do--to make more strategies viable. As is, in Legendary Ordeals I killed Ulm's God with an unequipped ninja because the AI decided to spam Ghost Wolves. My ninja managed to actually hit one--and the other 7 Ghost Wolves killed themselves with repel. That...isn't right.

The flavor text actually says that they're difficult to hit, and the mechanism of their Phantasmal Weapon is that they only deal damage when their opponent believes in the attack. It says nothing about them disappearing at that point. And guess what? They actually are pretty hard to hit if they don't kill themselves via repel.

There should be no reason that Phantasmal Warriors etc. should work strangely better against Wolf Tribe Warriors than others. It isn't even a hard fix, and it would give the spells the actual ability to tie up enemy troops.

[Sombre]

I'd be ok with boosting them to length,... what are they on the graphic, axes? Length 2 or 3 or 4 if it's a spear I guess. But length 6 doesn't make sense. Neither does length 0, I admit.

[thejeff]

It's a pretty brutal limitation though. Maybe add a gem of another type or replace one of the Nature gems, representing the weakening of the power of Nature under the curse?

[Globu]

I found a typo in the mod file:

#selectnation31
#hero5 2840
#end

I did a quick search of the thread, which didn't turn up anything, so apologies if this has already been brought up. And I'm most certainly very sketchy on modding knowledge and how forgiving the game is about syntax, so apologies as well if this is one of those no-big-deal, the-game-reads-it-properly-anyways things.

[Globu]

And yet another report.

I posted a while ago about how the change to Rams Head the White Satyr, one of Pangaea's heroes, removes his ability to summon Satyr Hoplites.

I just figured out that it does the same thing for Iszvat the Unwinged, EA Caelum's hero. Yeah, I know, Temple Guard suck, but nonetheless...

In case anyone else finds this bothersome, here are the fixes for both (repeating the Rams Head one for ease of reference):


For Iszvat's entry:
#makemonster5 1289 -- re-enables Iszvat's ability to summon Temple Guard

For Rams Heads's entry:
#makemonster5 230 -- re-enables Rams Head's ability to summon Satyr Hoplites


Am I correct in concluding from this that you can't mod any aspect of an existing unit that has a #makemonster summoning ability without eliminating its ability to do so (without specifically re-enabling the ability as done above)?

[Squirrelloid]

I believe removing summon allies from heroes was intentional, and was done to all the heroes who previously summoned allies.

[Sombre]

It was pretty damn boring. I'd rather they were all artificially inflated up to be thugs, frankly. Even if sticking enc 1 or reinvig and elemental resistances and boosted hp on some mortal doesn't make total sense, I figure it's cool because hell, Beowulf ripped the army off grendel. See what I mean? Heroes are legends. Legends, despite being mortal, are not constrained by mortal limits.

[Edi]

Okay, for people who may like to use different portions of the CBM mod but don't want to use all of it, here is the solution to your problems:

Conceptual Balance Mod v1.6: The Piecemeal Edition

You can download the mod from here. (http://koti.welho.com/ehalttun/dom3/) The same location also houses the Better Independents mod, the Dom3 DB and the Faerun map.

I have copy-pasted the text of the readme file I created for the CBM Piecemeal Edition (included in the zip file):


------------


The CBM 1.6 Piecemeal Edition contains the (almost) unaltered CBM 1.6 mod, but it is chopped up to sections. The complete CBM version is also included, but uses a different banner than the original CBM complete. Some minor things have also been fixed in this version (see below).


CHANGES AND FIXES
The selectnation31 typo for the Locksmith hero is fixed.
Duplicate entry for Pike has been removed from weapons section
Weapons & armor changes are organized so that modifications to existing weapons and armor come before adding new weapons or armor.
All weapon modding for existing weapons selects them by weapon number instead of name
The weapons and armor section has been moved to the top of the mod code in the complete version. This was done to ensure maximum compliance with good modding practices, since weapons and armor are more basic entities than units. Any new ones must be defined before being used by any unit, so moving the code to the beginning guarantees this.


BANNERS

All mod banners for the CBM Piecemeal Edition were made by Ballbarian. You can customize the pic for the complete mod if you like, because there are several alternatives.



SECTIONS

Each section deals with a specific aspect of the game:

Pretenders
Scales
Spells
Nations
Items (two versions)
Heroes (the old Worthy Heroes plus modifications)
Independents

All sections of the mod except Scales contain the fixed weapons and armor section to guarantee compatibility. Any changes should be done in a single mod and the entire section replaced across all the sections.

There are two versions of the item mod:
The "GG off" version makes the fever fetish, clam of pearls and bloodstone artifacts
The "GG on" version leaves them unaltered

The CB Independents mod contains all the CB modifications to independent units, which allows mixing and matching for better compatibility with other mods such as Better Independents.

The Worthy Heroes mod sections and its subsequent additions during the course of CBM development have been renamed CB Heroes for the sake of simplicity.

The site mods to Whispering Woods and Farm of Plenty are included in the Nations section. Since these changes do not assign altered or new units and only change the rarity, they are placed out of order in terms of mod command processing (see modding manual). This change does not result in anything being broken.

There is a combo file that combines the Whispering Woods and Farm of Plenty site modifications, pretenders and scales all in one file named Gods & Scales for convenience. This is originally for my own convenience, since Pretenders and Scales are the portions I most frequently use.

[Sombre]

All weapon modding for existing weapons selects them by weapon number instead of name

What's the actual benefit of this? The drawback is that it makes renumbering trickier.

[Edi]

All weapon modding for existing weapons selects them by weapon number instead of name

What's the actual benefit of this? The drawback is that it makes renumbering trickier.
Existing weapons, as in those weapons that were already in the vanilla game. E.g. Short Bow (#23) and so on.

I did not change any references to the new weapons or how weapons are referred to in unit code.

The way I understood the renumbering to work, that was only relevant to making mods compatible with each other, so it would only be an issue for new weapons that the mods added.

[Sombre]

Ah, only changed existing ones. Gotcha.

[WraithLord]

My thanks for the great work done so far on CBM. It's a real achievement!

Would it be possible to request a "deluxe" edition of CBM? - basically a CBM bundled with a few falvor or gfx mods such as:
- Streamers and Standards
- Community Sprites
and possibly:
- Endgame Diversity Summons

[llamabeast]

Actually I was planning on doing pretty much exactly that.

[WraithLord]

Sounds great llamabeast. I'm looking forward for your release. I hope this bundle will ultimately be considered the standard for MP & SP games. I will probably use it for each and every of my future games :)

[Sombre]

The MA and LA mod combos have streamers, cbm and endgame diversity already.

[llamabeast]

Yes, I meant to mention: Sombre's combo mods could also pretty much be considered standard for MA and LA games, as they have a good combination of mods rolled into them. They additionally have nation mods, which you can use or not use as you prefer.

I have some ambition to include cut-down versions of the community sprite mod and possibly the magic site mod as well. "Conservative" versions if you will, which contain only elements that I think the large majority of players will be happy to have included. Going through the magic site mod might be quite hard work though.

[WraithLord]

Sombre, I love your mod combos but what I had in mind is CBM with some gfx and flavor mods but w/o nation mods. Like Vanilla game on steroids. The Community Sprites is really nice and I'd really love to see it included in CBM/CBM combo. Same for streamers.

[Sombre]

Those mods don't conflict with cbm though, you can just enable them on top of it.

You can also just not enable the mod nations in the packs, if you don't want them.

[Rookierookie]

Can somebody tell me which sections of the mod deal with removing the Summon Allies ability from heroes?

[Globu]

That's the strange thing, Rookierookie -- there doesn't seem to be (from analyzing the two entries that I've put the summon ally ability back into) any actual command that does it. It seems, then, that modifying the units without specifically re-enabling that ability does so. If that's the case, then it's simply a matter of knowing which ones are supposed to have it, and manually re-entering it for those who prefer it. (And it makes me wonder if, in the sprite mod, I'll need to watch out for that -- if merely changing the sprite for a unit could unwittingly disable certain abilities of it.)

But my Dom3 modding knowledge is extremely rudimentary, so I am perhaps missing something. Someone else would need to verify this technical bit. (I understand the points that have been made as to the possible intentional nature of the removal and the undesirability of it from certain viewpoints, but in spite of these I find my own preference on it remains as is.)

[Sombre]

Name one of the units that in vanilla has summon allies and in cbm doesn't.

I'll look into it.

[WraithLord]

Those mods don't conflict with cbm though, you can just enable them on top of it.

You can also just not enable the mod nations in the packs, if you don't want them.

You right and you are right - But the same could be said of CBM, you could pick and choose every which part you like. There is merit to a consolidated bundle of mods beyond that of the picking of different parts. A consolidated mod is also a recommendation for which mods work well together. Its also much more convenient to have a bundle than to start picking 5-8 separate mods before starting a new game.

[Globu]

Name one of the units that in vanilla has summon allies and in cbm doesn't.

I'll look into it.

Much appreciated, Sombre.

The ones I saw were Ram's Head the White Satyr for Pangaea and Iszvat the Unwinged for Caelum.

[Stavis_L]

Name one of the units that in vanilla has summon allies and in cbm doesn't.

I'll look into it.

Much appreciated, Sombre.

The ones I saw were Ram's Head the White Satyr for Pangaea and Iszvat the Unwinged for Caelum.

Neither of those units summons allies in vanilla, according to both the Wiki and Edi's DB.

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Unwinged

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/White_Satyr

[Sombre]

Indeed. That's what I figured.

What's happened is they had summon allies previously in cbm. And now they don't.

[Globu]

Damn. You're right. Bad assumption on my part.

The summoning ability for those commanders must have been in earlier CBM, I assuming all the while that they were vanilla, rather than a change introduced in CBM and then later removed from CBM.

Well then. Never mind my half-baked theory on that. Go on about your business, nothing to see here. :o


EDIT: (I saw Sombre's post after I wrote this.)

[militarist]

New, more systematic to ballancing nations.

Since CBM is the main mod for ballance improvement, I think it is a proper place where strategic balancing of nations should be done. Approach, which I see now is quite simplistic. It would be cool if someone knowing dominions, and main strategy templates of all nations, and counter templates from other nations would make some look of obvious holes.

For example as Ctis, I just was smashed by S9(+ some minors) bless Lankas.
Twist fate makes Cti's tramplers ineffective, skellyspam is sound like an answer, but it was always just not enough spammers. And it was very hard to protect provinces from raiding by lanka's thugs. Ctis's PD is something terrible and N+D magic is not a best kind of magic for supporting troops. It was just overkill.

We can take men against giants, etc. Any nation with any. Then to generalize it to some common templates and then look at each nation which seems vulnerable to each template ,if it has counter strategy at all. I believe that the game is ballanced, when you always have some counter strategy, not connected with diplomacy.

I mean approach should be systematic. Maybe a table of nations, with commonly used strategies of each agains each and counters. If they exist. It would help to create a frame, though which we could see better what nation on what stage of a game against which nation needs some method.

One of templates can be expansion for each nation. Some nations, with a single bless expands very fast, and others are in pain all this stage, and it is not necessary because they are stronger in other game stages.

So the answer of CBM can be an answer to major templates, used by players in MP against other nations + during expansion phase.

[Trumanator]

The thing is militarist, CBM has never really been about inter-nation balance, except for really egregious cases. Instead, its been more focused on intra-nation balance, trying to make it so that different troop/commander choices within nations are all equally valid.

[Squirrelloid]

Might i request not bundling standards and streamers? its not like it conflicts with CBM, and I would prefer not having to find the standards and streamers bits solely to delete them. Its already silly enough having a blanked copy of the standards and streamers mod.

[Squirrelloid]

The thing is militarist, CBM has never really been about inter-nation balance, except for really egregious cases. Instead, its been more focused on intra-nation balance, trying to make it so that different troop/commander choices within nations are all equally valid.

This isn't really true. most of the 1.6 changes were inter-nation balance focused. CBM seems to shift more and more to overall balance from intra-nation balance as time goes on.

Basically, I wish people would stop trotting this out as an excuse not to fix things. The goal of CBM is to have people be willing to make a larger variety of choices, and that can just as well apply to nations as units within nations or magic items.

[rdonj]

Squirrel - it is possible that eventually CBM will one day reach the standards you're setting for it. However I expect that day, if coming, is a very long time off. Why don't you try your hand at modifying CBM and making your own balance mod like chrispedersen did? It's unlikely you'll get as many people playing your mod as CBM has, but you can at least start your own games under it. And you'll be able to play the game you want that way ;)

QM has been known to add parts of other mods into CBM... a la no gem gens, UWGIM, and worthy heroes. If he likes some of your changes they could end up being included in CBM as well. All you have to do is a bit of modding.

[kianduatha]

I just realized that Jomon's Tatsu might actually have a niche if you gave them H2--their flavor says that they follow one of the Five Paths, so they could be like flying Monks of the Fivefold Path. They'd still be niche, but at least they wouldn't be completely useless.

[Festin]

I think there is only one possible use for Tatsu - cheap flying thugs which can be used without investing in additional equipment. It is just a matter of making them more cost-effective. Maybe if they are made cheaper and a bit more tough, or given the ability to self-bless...

[ano]

Just started getting acquainted with CMB 1.6 and so have got a question.
Why does the Skratti pretender (Blood 1, new path 10, dom 1) with slightly above 30 hp and human stats cost 50 points while the other rainbows either cost 0 or are greatly improved (or both) and the immortal(!) Bog Mummy (B1D1, dominion 2, better stats) costs 110.
It's either I misunderstand something or it was not covered by the mod.

[rdonj]

Not sure, that does seem a bit expensive for how CBM would cost it. Should probably be more like 30 points, honestly. but maybe there's some reason for it that I don't immediately comprehend, either.

[Festin]

Maybe he is supposed to be able to change shape like normal Skrattis do? Then the extra cost would make some sense.

[Daynarr]

Added a mod tag to this thread.

[Lingchih]

I doubt CBM will be updated anytime soon. Unless QM comes back into the fold.

[chrispedersen]

Just started getting acquainted with CMB 1.6 and so have got a question.
Why does the Skratti pretender (Blood 1, new path 10, dom 1) with slightly above 30 hp and human stats cost 50 points while the other rainbows either cost 0 or are greatly improved (or both) and the immortal(!) Bog Mummy (B1D1, dominion 2, better stats) costs 110.
It's either I misunderstand something or it was not covered by the mod.

I specifically asked QM about it when I was doing the balance mod. (Where I had changed the value and suggested the same to qm)
His answer, as I recall it, was that it was fine as is.

[Ragnarok-X]

Anyone ever found Fire Snakes FAAR to powerful for only 9 Gems ?

[Quitti]

No.

[quantum_mechani]

Sometime in the next few months I should be returning to work on CB. I do apologize to the many of the people who commented in this thread as there are a few too many comments to respond to individually.

Also, when I do return to work on it, the mod/discussion will probably be located at http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?. This actually has less to do with the recent ban spree than earlier even less defensible actions such as the de-modding of Ich, the creator of the wiki.

[Quitti]

Sounds good! You could start a preliminary CBM1.7 thread or something like that there already, possibly copy some suggestions you feel worthy of implementation from here to there if you're not keeping the project here.

[militarist]

Kailasa I think need changes. All it's summons, whithout which it just can't build a ballanced strategy are astral, and late. The fact that they are astral could be fixed with clams to which Kailasa had great access, but with CBM it has no such option. And Kailasa is really weak in the early game, unless you take blesses, worthless for endgame and paths for pretender which he just don't need otherwise. I would propose to make 2 changes with them - 1st - to make all national summons 2 research levels earlier, and second - change type of gems needed for these casts - it would be reasonable to switch some to N,W and E fro S. And to leave only top summon(s?) in S. Otherwise without nexus, it's just not realistic to have these summons in MP. And to cast Nexus, you already should be winning, so that's not a realistic case.

[Fantomen]

I disagree with you there militarist. The monkey nation summons are the same for all ages, and I think they should stay astral themathically.

It would be much better to balance the monkey troops a bit so a non-bless strat becomes doable for all the monkey nations.

[Quitti]

The monkey nations can fire up all sorts of fun gem gen globals anyway and alchemise that stuff into pearls. I don't see what the problem with that is.

[WraithLord]

How about adding any/all of the mods below:

- Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod v 0.92
I didn't try it but the from the description the changes look good balance wise.

- Community sprites.
- Streamers and Standards
Just GFX, but oh so cool :)

- End game diversity.
No more tart only end game.

1.7 can be distributed as base CBM 1.7 (CBM only) and enhanced CBM combined with all the above mods.

Such a release of 1.7 would be, well, awesome :D
And yes, it's possible to mix and match mods manually but it's:
a- repetitive, annoying
b- not fail proof (conflicts)
c- You never know whether the mods you combine are supposed to work together (thematically)

There are already a few combo mods around. I like them all but most are focused on nations, not on enhancing vanilla game.
I think llamabeast mentioned a possible combo with his diversity mod but I've no idea where this stands.
CBM++ is something I'd really love to see.

Edit: :doh:, I had a vague recollection of mentioning this in another thread. Turns out to be this thread. Sorry for the repeat.

[Caneda]

If i install the CBM and i click on New Game.The game give me this error : Nagot gick fel!Bad #selectarmor command.

Anyone can help me please?i am new of the game ,thx :)

[Squirrelloid]

Why do people insist on bundling Streamers and Standards with things? If *you* want it to be bundled with CBM, add it yourself. Let those of us who don't think its an improvement not need to use it. Its purely graphical, so you can add it to another mod used in a game with no issues. But having to search through a gigantic mod like CBM to delete its content is a rather aggravating thing to force others to do.

Basically, its easier for those people who want to use streamers and standards to add it to a mod that's being used than for others to have to delete its contents from random mod compilations.

[Joelz]

If i install the CBM and i click on New Game.The game give me this error : Nagot gick fel!Bad #selectarmor command.

Anyone can help me please?i am new of the game ,thx :)

Are you using any other mods than CBM at the same time? If you are they likely conflict with each other. You can either disable one of the mods or try activating them in a different order.
I had a similar problem a while back when I was playing warhammer mods.
You could also take the long way and try one of the combine scripts. I've seen it around here somewhere.

Of course this is just what I think might be the cause, so don't count on it too much :)

[Caneda]

mhmhm no this is the only mod that i use :(

[Joelz]

Hmm... I'm afraid my knowledge is very limited when it comes to mods. If you've got the latest Dominions 3 patch and it still does that, I'm afraid I'm not much of a use here.
Just wait and some veteran will surely step in and help you ;)

[rdonj]

If CBM 1.6 is the only mod you have, perhaps your game version is out of date. Have you downloaded the latest patch? There's a link that'll get you there on the news bar to the left.

[Caneda]

solved...thank you all :D

[Caneda]

Edit sorry :D

[legowarrior]

I'd like to see some starker differences between Sohei and Yamabushi. Perhaps to emphasis the defensive aspect of the Sohei, they could have heavy Samurai Armor, and maybe No-Daishi instead of a normal Katana. I believe those weapons were considered easier to manufacture because the design was less ornate in general then that of the Katana.

Did the Sohei or the Yamabushi have a sort of grandmaster or leadertype, because that would be a cool leader unit to add to the game.
Both have 1 Holy, but Sohei would have 1 air, while Yamabushi had 100% at 1 Fire/1 Nature/1 Earth.

Why do the Jomon get one Fire a turn? Wouldn't make more sense to get one Water a turn, since they are a sea bound culture?


Two other changes that would be cool. The inclusion of Ronin units. You get them all the time when you have High Turmoil and High Luck. They have leather armor, so low resource cost. A Ronin is simple a masterless Samurai... Well, the pretender god would make a worthy cause to join for them.

And longbows on Cavalry. Samurai were archers first and for most.

Finally, Japan was a sea bound culture. Look how Age of Empires Portrays them (what a source.) Let's have more water themed pretenders. And an Emperor. If T'ien Ch'i can have a jade emperor, then so can the Jomon.

[kianduatha]

Hrm, minor bug report(which explains a lot of why I've been having such high upkeep in a MP game)...

-Ninja
#selectmonster 1256
#gcost 40
#end

-Kannushi
#selectmonster 1256
#gcost 60
#end

The idnumbers are wrong, they should be 1257 and 1258 respectively. As things stand the mod is instead making Shura have a goldcost of 60...a quite unfortunate thing to realize when you have a few dozen of them. Ugh.

[Valerius]

Ok, it's possible someone already mentioned this in the many pages of this thread, but pyg recently posted a list of spells (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=746027&postcount=2) courtesy of lch. Using the spell numbers in this list solves the problem qm mentions in the first post about pack of wolves, ambush of tigers, etc not being accessible with mod commands. I don't know if anyone ever wanted to summon them at base prices but the cbm changes make them somewhat more appealing...

[Squirrelloid]

I'd like to see some starker differences between Sohei and Yamabushi. Perhaps to emphasis the defensive aspect of the Sohei, they could have heavy Samurai Armor, and maybe No-Daishi instead of a normal Katana. I believe those weapons were considered easier to manufacture because the design was less ornate in general then that of the Katana.

You realize this would *decrease* the difference between yamabushi and sohei? There are two big differences at present: Yamabushi have a higher internal attack stat, and the weapon (katana vs. glaive). That's a 4 point damage difference, most notably. Making the katana a no-dashi reduces it to a 2 point damage difference.

You want to really differentiate them? Make sohei recruit anywhere. There's really no reason they shouldn't be, and its not like they're good enough sacreds to make a bless build that desirable. (Yamabushi are so much better than Sohei at present - its all about the glaive).

[Graeme Dice]

And since Sohei were (basically) sacred warriors attached to a temple rather than a location, it even makes some sense.

[legowarrior]

I was actually pointing out using Heavy Samurai Army instead of Normal Samurai Armor for the Sohei. The No-Daishi is just a cooler weapon, but the use of Heavy Samurai Armor would further emphasis the more defensive nature of the Sohei over the Yamabushi.

I agree that the Sohei should be made to 'recruit anywhere', if wikipedia is to be believed. I think that the Yamabushi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamabushi should get some supernatural powers. Mountain Survival would fit with them.
Anyway, there are a lost of different ways that the Jomon could be altered.

[kianduatha]

Yamabushi already have supernatural powers--their high MR.

Maaybe making Sohei recruit-anywhere, giving them Heavy Samurai Armor, and making them MM1 would do something, but that seems like a drastic set of changes. Anything less than that would make them the new Aka-Oni Samurai, which doesn't really fix anything.

[Makinus]

Just making the Sohei recruit-anywhere would be enough to make them more interesting...

[Festin]

It would make them more interesting, but make Jomon overall more boring IMO. I hope this change will never be made.

[legowarrior]

One change I'd like to replace would be to replace the Fire Gem they get in the beginning with a water gem. It fits better thematically.

[Squirrelloid]

It would make them more interesting, but make Jomon overall more boring IMO. I hope this change will never be made.

I'm not sure what you mean. Its not like the sohei is so good that everyone would start playing a bless. It would just make playing a blessing an interesting and viable choice (something it really isn't right now).

[legowarrior]

What kind of options do the Jomon have at present?

[Squirrelloid]

What kind of options do the Jomon have at present?

Off the top of my head:
Yamabushi and Sohei, both cap only. Yamabushi is the only one of the two worth using at present, and they're worth using even without a bless.

Some sacred commanders in the conjuration tree. Can thug ok, but they require earth or astral gems, which are the gem types you also want to be using frequently for other things, and then they need gear.

[rdonj]

All of the tengu are also sacred. And oni generals and dai oni. Possibly some of their other summons as well.

[Festin]

I'm not sure what you mean. Its not like the sohei is so good that everyone would start playing a bless. It would just make playing a blessing an interesting and viable choice (something it really isn't right now).

Well, somebody on this forum recently made a good point when he compared playing Jomon with using a Swiss knife to fight a man with a hammer. In my opinion, making Sohei non-cap only basically equals adding another tool to the Swiss knife. Yes, it would be possible to play Jomon as bless nation, but Jomon already has lots of different options - what it need is not more options, but making some of these options good, and/or making them fit together.

For example, what kind of bless would you pick for Sohei? Is it the same bless that would be optimal for their thugs? I don't really think so. Thugs need E and N, sacred units usually need something else. Plus, Jomon already has excellent shock infantry - this is the niche that sacreds usually fill. So, IMO Sohei will either 1)replace Aka-Oni samurai, further restricting the pretender design options and adding little to available tactics or 2)turn out inferior to aka-oni, making change meaningless.

I like several things about Jomon, like their thugs, their samurai infantry, their underwater units, etc, and I would really like to see these get some boost instead.

[kianduatha]

That was very nicely put, Festin.

How would you like to se Ryuujin/their thugs in general be changed to be more useful? My almost default is to give them some priest levels because of their flavor text, but what are your thoughts?

[Festin]

Well, I'm all for Ryujin getting a priest level (while I must admit that I never used them in MP myself, because I never managed to actually enter the sea). At least, it will give a player some additional reason to invest in an Earth bless, which is badly needed by several thugs. Too bad that E and N are two paths nicely covered by Jomon's mages.

Now, regarding the summons:
Kappa: raise the price (but not the research level), and make the Kappa Chief come with some Kappa troops. Wow, we can actually use them to enter water now.

Ujigami/Kenzoku: these are very nice as they are, so they hardly need a real boost. Their real problem is fatigue, caused by the horribly, unrealistically heavy samurai armor, which has long been in need of some weight reduction, by the way. If Jomon's mages were sacred it would not be such a problem (because an E bless would be an obvious choice), but they are not sacred and will never be, because it is not thematic. Also, Kenzoku could use a priest level like Ujigami, but it is not crucial.

Ghost General: they are almost perfect thugs, but oh well. Maybe, maybe one day we will see a death random on a Jomon mage. I want to believe.

Various tengu: never saw them summoned. Probably they could use a slight cost reduction.

Tatsu: currently useless. Increase stats and/or add H1, and/or reduce gems cost and then maybe it will become a viable choice as a flying raider.

Kitsune: eh, maybe a cost reduction? Never saw a single one of them used.
EDIT: give them Seduction, and they will become a nice and thematic unit.

Dai Oni: please make them cheaper. I am sick of Tartarians. I want to see cool national SCs like Dai Oni. Yes, I know Jomon has no way to summon them.

[kianduatha]

Tengu are amazingly badass...Dai Tengu have the native ability to get up to A4 in combat with Teaching Sign, and you get enough flying sacred troops with to more than justify the cost.

Amusingly enough I'm even playing a MP game with Jomon and have some Kitsune and still assumed that they had seduction. Heh.

[legowarrior]

I have heard suggestions that the Onmyo-ji and the Master Shugenja have linked randoms, which would make them better units in most cases. A guarantee of 2 Nature, Water, Earth, Fire or Air would make cite search easier. You would lose the chance to get 2 Earth 2 Nature Shugenja for the most part.

So propose a two part change and an increase of cost. First is that we have linked randoms, and that we increase the chance of a third non linked random from 10% to 25%. Along with this, we should increase the price of the units to 180 since they are a bit better.

Lastly, is there any point to the Shugenja? I realize they are subordinate to the Master Shugenja, but if I am limited on gold, I'd prefer to build a Monk, with it's 1 holy.

[kianduatha]

Making a true linked random of FAWEN is impossible given the modding commands we have (if I understand correctly, we could give elemental linked randoms but including nature puts a kink in that), first off. Second...some of those weird combinations are occasionally useful.

[legowarrior]

On occasion, maybe, but for the most part, linked is far more useful. It gives you a good chance at 3 Earth or 3 nature, and 2 earth 2 astral allows you to forge a lot of useful items.

[rdonj]

As jomon you should be building tons of onmyoji and master shugenja anyway. The only time it's really a problem is early in the game, when you are struggling to get remote site searching going because you have to rely on randoms. If you link the randoms, you will lose access to the very useful f/w combo for acid spells, rune smashers, manifest vitriols.... Not many people have access to f/w, which makes it a very nice bonus.

[ologm]

Would giving golem crafters construct lord be a good idea?

[Redeyes]

Would giving golem crafters construct lord be a good idea?

It wouldn't be horrible, and Agartha needs the help. On the other hand, it infringes on Ulm's specialization something fierce what with Golem Crafters having the same paths + water..

[Fantomen]

You could give the a small forge bonus perhaps? Like 5 or 10. Is that possible or does it have to be 15 or more?

[ologm]

Would giving golem crafters construct lord be a good idea?

It wouldn't be horrible, and Agartha needs the help. On the other hand, it infringes on Ulm's specialization something fierce what with Golem Crafters having the same paths + water..

No, I mean costruct lord like their national hero has: ( http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Mason_of_the_Underworld ). That way they would get better at massing all golems.

[Fantomen]

Ah, nice idea. I had never heard of that ability before. The question is whether that is moddable or not, my guess is that it can't be modded, at least not cleanly.

[Stavis_L]

Would giving golem crafters construct lord be a good idea?

It wouldn't be horrible, and Agartha needs the help. On the other hand, it infringes on Ulm's specialization something fierce what with Golem Crafters having the same paths + water..

No, I mean costruct lord like their national hero has: ( http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Mason_of_the_Underworld ). That way they would get better at massing all golems.

Actually, it doesn't apply to golems, poison golems, or crushers (at least.) It does apply to mechanical men and clockwork horrors, though. I haven't tested with the Agarthan national summons, but I would hope it does...

[Fantomen]

Well, since it is on one of their national heroes I think you could assume it does. But is it moddable?

[Fantomen]

A few other suggestions.

A minor boost to corpse man construction, better attack perhaps, and a little innate protection. As it is now they're not worth it even with lightning rods, which is a shame I think. It's a cool concept.

Lower the Caelian base enc to 3.

Give the Agarthan ancient ones long spears instead of normal ones.

Increase the MA ulm smiths random pick to 15 or 20% (if thats possible, no idea)

[Valerius]

Well, since it is on one of their national heroes I think you could assume it does. But is it moddable?

As far as I can tell there's no #constructlord ability so you'd have to #copystats the hero. The problem there is you'll end up with all his specials (stealth, siege bonus, forge bonus, etc.) and you can't selectively remove them.

In any case, I ran a test and the ability doesn't seem to apply to Attentive Statues and Enliven Sentinel so I doubt it will work on any of Agartha's national summons. But that doesn't matter since those are national spells and you could just improve the number of summons per casting on the assumption that if Golem Crafters received a summoning bonus the player would be likely to use them for the task.

[Stavis_L]

Well, since it is on one of their national heroes I think you could assume it does. But is it moddable?

As far as I can tell there's no #constructlord ability so you'd have to #copystats the hero. The problem there is you'll end up with all his specials (stealth, siege bonus, forge bonus, etc.) and you can't selectively remove them.


Note that unit 1073 (Maker of the Maze, an Arco hero) also has the ability, and doesn't have nearly the array of annoying "tag-along" attributes. I used it in my Mistica mod for the Golem King pretender.


In any case, I ran a test and the ability doesn't seem to apply to Attentive Statues and Enliven Sentinel so I doubt it will work on any of Agartha's national summons.

That's a shame :(

[Soyweiser]

Just a small bugreport for a unused pretender, or perhaps a hero? The Champion of the Horn copies a female pretender, and thus gets listed as female. While the graphic and description is male.